Shi Lei, 15 years old, may still be an immature child in other people's eyes. He should still be accompanied by flowers and songs, reading aloud under bright windows and clean desks in school, enjoying parents and games at home. No one might suspect this youth had seen the shadows of evil and terror, or the meanness of rogues. No one might imagine he has calmly endured those shadows and walked through with determination. Shi Lei had been a second year junior school student in Shjianzhuan City. An outstanding student, he earned excellent marks in his studies. After learning Falun Dafa, Shi Lei's practice further solidified his reputation for upright and moral behavior. His consideration to others and desire to continually improve himself has endeared him to his teachers and classmates. On learning that Falun Dafa was to be labeled an "evil cult", Shi Lei and his mother were dismayed to see their neighbors and city fall under the influence of a suffocating crackdown on Falun Dafa practitioners. Unlawfully prevented from appealing locally, they went directly to Beijing. On Oct 17th, 1999, mother and son arrived in Beijing to find what tens of thousands of other Falun Dafa practitioners found: Police closely monitored central government offices, especially appealing offices. Policemen in plainclothes, leading hired thugs and criminals still serving prison terms, stopped people who attempted to enter appealing offices. Any recognized as coming to appeal for Falun Gong were put into police cars, detained together with other people, and then sent back to their legal residences. That day, police arrested Shi Lei and his mother as they arrived at the appealing office to appeal. Shi Lei was escorted back to Xinhua police substation of Shijiazhuan and detained. Policemen used some of their professional techniques, intimidation and bribery, to break down Shi psychologically, as if he were a common criminal. Shi Lei was detained there for two days and one night and was interrogated many times. Their games of "good cop, bad cop" tried to make Shi give in and say "I will not practice Falun Gong any longer." Despite their repeated attempts, Shi Lei refused to write such a promise. They had no alternative but to fabricate a charge of "disturbing the peace" and sent the child to detention center. They thought to have this child, who had never seen the darkness of a prison, experience fear personally so that he would give in and write their pledge. However, Shi was undisturbed, strongly determined to practice Dafa, and was released ten days later. Release was no end to the threat, only a respite before escalation. To pressure Shi, the policemen publicly handcuffed his school supervisor, forced him into a police car, and escorted him to the police substation for interrogation. Shi's school supervisor, under police coercion, disallowed Shi to return to his year's study. Thus was Shi Lei forced into truancy from compulsory education. Policemen treated an innocent school supervisor so viciously just to flaunt their allegiance to political policy. They even completely denied a child his legal duty to receive education, sabotaging the future of the child. After his release from the detention center, young Shi Lei finally returned to his family, warm despite his mother's forced absence. However, the policemen were still unwilling to give up, and called Shi Lei at home many times daily to ask if he still practiced Falun Gong. Each time Shi Lei replied, "Falun Dafa is good. I will practice it!" After five days of this deadlock, policemen decided to try physical and mental torture to make him relent. The policemen dragged Shi away from his home to the police sub-station. They handcuffed him to a stair banister and shouted at him "Will you still practice Falun Gong?" each time kicking him. They also intimidated him: " If you still say you will practice, I will string you up by your thumbs." Shi Lei, unmoved, still said "Dafa is good. I will practice it to the end." The policemen and their accomplices, though armed with instruments and practiced at many kinds of coercion and torture, became powerless in front of the youth's unwavering- calmness. The policemen were furious and wanted to send Shi Lei to the detention center. But because all the detention centers were too full, overflowing with Falun Dafa practitioners detained while going to appeal to the central government, they could not transfer him. Shi Lei stayed handcuffed to the banister for six days. The policemen sometimes intimated the child and sometimes tempted him. Because Shi Lei was handcuffed tightly for such a long time, the cold handcuffs cut deeply into his skin with each movement. Some spots became deep blue and black. Some places swelled like a balloon. Some places festered. Pus and blood mingled, flowed, and contaminated many parts of his body. Shi Lei endured the pains silently but firmly. Since intimidation and bribery didn't work, one woman, claiming to come from the Procurators' Office, threatened Shi Lei if he refused to change, he would be sent to the Youth Detention Center. Later, failing to find any change on him, they told the school supervisor to bail out the youth. After Shi Lei returned home, the middle school said the child could only come back to school if he would promise not to practice Falun Gong, but Shi Lei refused. His grandfather, father and aunt all talked to the school supervisor but it was useless. The middle school formally expelled Shi Lei, and he lost his right to receive education. At the end of November of 1999, Secretary Han Shenli from Street Administrative Office asked Shi Lei come to his office for a talk. He asked the child whether he wanted to see his mother. Shi Lei and his mother were arrested together, and Shi Lei had yet to see her in the intervening weeks. At the same time, his mother, who had been illegally detained in her work unit, was also escorted to the Street Administrative Office and was brought to Director Dai of Xinhua Street Administrative Office for a talk. During their talk, his mother was repeatedly asked, " Do you want to see your son?" Then she was taken to another room to talk to Han Shenli. During the talk, a female journalist from the CCTV program "Jiaodianfantan" snuck in and laid down a recording microphone. After a while, a male journalist came in and set up a video camera. When Shi Lei's mother asked what these things were for. Han Shenli evasively said, " We want to take a shot of you and your son's meeting." This mother said, " I don't agree to you taking any picture. Please ask the journalists to take away the video camera and microphone." But the journalists didn't move. At that time, Shi Lei came in surrounded by that female journalist and other staff member. Right away, Shi Lei's mother told him, " We are open and righteous Falun Dafa practitioners. We cannot let Master Li down. We cannot blacken the name of Dafa. Let's ask the journalists to take away their instruments." At once little Shi Lei asked the journalists to take away their instruments. So the journalists had to take away their video camera and microphone. When Han Shenli saw his scheme to tape their reunion was foiled, he slapped the table and swore at them. Then he angrily ordered Shi Lei removed to another room. The cameraman still stealthily took one shot of Shi Lei's back, taken later after his mother had been removed. CCTV broadcast this clip on their program "Jiaodianfantan" last December, claiming that this child had been successfully removed from the influence of an evil cult, implying Falun Dafa. A national broadcast on government television intentionally libeled this youth and Falun Dafa. No matter how horrible the wrongdoing, Falun Dafa practitioners continue their practice undeterred. Shi Lei continues his Dafa cultivation and has managed to transfer to another middle school to continue his legally-required education. Justice will prevail eventually. Each monstrous crime, justified as orders from Jiang Zeming and his followers, has been silently remembered. We urge those who blindly follow such orders, instead of the People and Constitution and law they claim to draw authority from, please put down your knives. Choosing to follow unjust and illegal orders is no defense. Please bravely and resolutely stand on the side of justice; offer what help you can to throw off the chains of injustice binding both the Falun Dafa practitioners and yourselves. What you choose for them, you choose for yourself. The phone number of Wang Jianhua, the police substation Director of Xinhua street in Shijiazhuan City: 011-86-311-3016048. The phone number of Han Shenli, the secretary of the Administrative Office of Xinhua Street: 011-86-311-7011245. Falun Dafa practitioners of Mainland, China September 2000

Category: Accounts of Persecution